The Very White of Love

by S C Worrall

  But, recently, she has been going through her notebooks, trying to pull together the bits of poetry she has scribbled on the train or the Tube since Martin left. And so, after her parents have gone to bed, she sits up typing on the new Baby Hermes portable she bought in a sale on Oxford Street. The latest Swiss design – chic, elegant and fast, hence its nickname, The Rocket. All the famous writers are using one. But tonight it’s not doing anything for her.

  She yanks out a half-completed poem from the carriage, crumples the sheet in her hand, throws it in the bin, then threads a new sheet into place, yanks the return lever. She lights a Du Maurier cigarette, then stares down at a little blue notebook where she keeps her rough drafts. Next to it, strewn across the table, is her correspondence with the Red Cross and the War Office.

  The poem she is working on is dated September 1938. A few weeks after they met. An eternity ago.

  I see

  Plums reddening on the branch,

  A mist-grey sky; it is the hour

  When music-rounded air

  Curves to the moon’s

  Rounded and golden shell . . .

  Her eyes cloud with tears, remembering that first September. Golden leaves. Their first kiss. Those first, happy days at Whichert House.

  She bites her lip, pulls the page out of the carriage, takes a pencil, crosses out the word ‘rounded’ and replaces it with ‘hollow’. Reads the lines back to herself, then feeds the paper back into the carriage and types on.

  And in my heart

  The harmony of a . . .

  She pulls on the cigarette again, searching for the word.

  . . . latening year.

  Is ‘latening’ a word? She shrugs and types on.

  Has brought our love to flower

  I do not long now for the spring,

  Nor dread winter;

  Now all seasons,

  In time and pattern

  Do agree.

  She pulls the sheet out of the carriage, draws on her cigarette, rereads her words. If only she could feel that now. Three years on, nothing agrees. The world has gone mad. And the approaching winter fills her with dread.

  She slips the poem into a brown folder, stubs out her cigarette, then tiptoes downstairs to make a cup of tea. Fills the kettle, puts it on the Rayburn, rinses out the teapot, waits for the water to boil. Outside, the first light is warming the brickwork of the houses. The front garden is bright with daffodils. A thrush sings in the hedge. The air smells of blossom and dew. She taps her foot on the tiled floor, checks her watch. Finally, the kettle whistles. She makes the tea, pours milk from a yellow jug in the pantry, then hurries back upstairs to dress for work.

  The train is about to pull out as she hurtles down the station approach and throws her bicycle against the fence. Familiar stations roll past. Seer Green and Jordans. Gerrards Cross. Denham. Eager dogs chase balls across the fields. Clouds drift across the surface of a water-filled quarry.

  At Marylebone, she takes the Tube to Oxford Circus. London is still reeling from its worst night of bombing. Black Saturday, they are calling it – though it was one of the most beautiful days of the year. Clear blue skies, golden sunshine. Shirtsleeves and summer skirts. Then, suddenly, the sky was filled with planes, three hundred and fifty bombers and six hundred Messerschmitt fighters, nearly twenty square miles, wing to wing.

  Every church in the land rang its bells. She heard them tolling from the churches at Blythe Cottage. Not the usual chimes, for a wedding or a communion service. These bells were a call to arms, warning that a German invasion was imminent. Operation Cromwell. As though their army of dads and granddads had any chance of stopping the Wehrmacht. Apparently, half of them got lost that night, trying to find their rallying points. Others forgot their rifles, or their helmets.

  The papers are saying it was the largest enemy force sent against England since the Spanish Armada. Goering himself watched the planes take off in France from a cliff top in Normandy. The target was the docks and the East End. Tens of thousands of incendiary bombs fell from the skies, igniting factories, warehouses and homes. The worst fires since the Great Fire of 1666. The firestorm was so hot that it melted metal, caused vehicles to explode miles away from the actual conflagration. In parts of the East End, it is still smouldering. Miraculously, less than four hundred people were killed, many of them firefighters. But tens of thousands were injured or made homeless.

  London’s demographics have been turned upside down. The East End has come to the West End, families displaced from Stepney or Bow push prams or handcarts piled with children, and a few possessions. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has never heard so much Cockney rhyming slang. In London’s gentlemen’s clubs blue with cigar smoke, there are mutterings of revolution. Last week, an angry crowd from Stepney invaded the Savoy Hotel and demanded free tea and sandwiches for their families.

  ‘They’ll be asking for brandy and cigars next,’ grumbles her boss, Mr Chalmers, as she walks into the office, still tired from her nocturnal session with the Muse. He’s a short, bald man who sweats profusely, even when it is not hot, and is forever yanking up his trousers over his belly. Mr Charmless, she calls him.

  ‘These need to get off before lunch, Miss Whelan.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Chalmers.’ She smiles beatifically, then, once her boss’s back is turned, lowers her forehead and bangs it on the desk.

  In her lunch break, she stays in her cubicle, eating the sandwich Peg made for her, drinking tea from a chipped cup. When Mr Charmless leaves for his lunch, she goes through the paper, noting the latest details from France in the Oxford exercise book where she keeps track of everything. Details of phone calls made and received, a to-do list of people to contact, dates of letters sent and received. Clippings from the newspaper. Military terms she doesn’t understand: flanking movements, bridging the gap.

  She has constructed a rough timeline of Martin’s movements from when he arrived at Le Havre on 19 January to when the battalion reached Hazebrouck on 25 May. She knows that there was a fierce battle in the town, that Martin was last seen on the 27th, some men were killed and others are in POW camps. But there are agonizing gaps in the record and her mind swarms around these lacunae, like a column of ants around a nest. What happened to Martin that night? Was he wounded? Did he manage to escape? If he was taken prisoner, why hasn’t he written? Perhaps he was knocked unconscious and suffered a bout of temporary amnesia? No answers, only questions.

  The only thing she is sure of is that he is alive.

  22 SEPTEMBER 1940

  Blythe Cottage

  She wakes and hurries to the bathroom, splashes water on her face, turns the tap on and off, opens the wall cabinet, searching for some cotton wool. Outside, she can hear a thrush pouring arpeggios of liquid sound into the peaceful Sunday morning. These are the golden days of autumn, the time of year when their lives first converged, like planets, and the season makes her feel his absence even more keenly. What sounds is Martin hearing today? What bird sings for him?

  This is no time for daydreaming, though. She has a train to catch. Since Martin’s disappearance she has been travelling all over the county, speaking to other women whose men have gone missing. Today, she is going to Aylesbury to visit Mrs Viney, the mother of Elliott Viney, the battalion’s second-in-command.

  Nancy brushes her hair and tiptoes back into her bedroom. Holds two dresses up to the mirror. She wants to make the right impression. Finally, she chooses the dress with a pattern of blue and white combs, cinched at the waist. White shoes. White sun hat.

  ‘Welcome to Green End House.’ Mrs Viney leads her inside, past cool rooms decorated in subdued colours; timbered walls hung with framed pictures of Viney ancestors. ‘Let’s sit in the garden.’

  On the back lawn, a table is set with a white tablecloth, green umbrella, a jug of home-made lemonade and two tall glasses. Even though they are less than ninety minutes from Oxford Circus, the war and all its grief feel a million miles away from this secl
uded, Buckinghamshire garden. The long, two storeyed brick house with its black and white timbered gable stretches behind them.

  Nancy adjusts her hat, fiddles nervously with her ring. The fiancée of a second lieutenant is far below the mother of the second-in-command of the battalion on the social ladder. And Nancy also knows things from Martin about the battalion she cannot speak of to this woman: veiled, and sometimes open, criticisms of the commanding officers; frustration at the slowness of the bureaucracy; the lack of initiative.

  ‘Such beautiful weather!’ she enthuses.

  ‘Our pilots would prefer rain, I think.’ Mrs Viney pours Nancy some lemonade. ‘The Luftwaffe has almost razed Portsmouth.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Nancy bites her lip.

  ‘My roses could do with a bit more rain, too.’ Mrs Viney puts the lemonade jug firmly back on the table.

  ‘Your garden is beautiful.’ Nancy takes a gulp of lemonade.

  ‘I feel very blessed,’ Mrs Viney agrees.

  ‘The house is Jacobean, is it?’ Nancy adjusts her sun hat as she turns to look at the timbered gables.

  ‘Elizabethan.’ Mrs Viney smiles a knowing smile. ‘The brick part is terribly nouveau.’ She sighs. ‘Eighteenth century.’

  Nancy laughs. Sips lemonade. Nervously adjusts her hat.

  ‘Were you and Second Lieutenant Preston married?’

  ‘Engaged.’ Nancy pauses. ‘We plan to marry after the war.’

  ‘Of course.’ Mrs Viney looks down at her lap, then across at Nancy. ‘I called you the other day because I have some news for you.’

  Nancy’s heart thumps in her chest.

  ‘Captain Viney has filed an initial report with the Red Cross.’

  ‘So, he’s alive?’ Nancy almost leaps out of the chair.

  ‘Yes.’ Her voice drops. ‘Both my sons are alive.’

  Nancy is skewered between her own disappointment and happiness for another woman. ‘That’s wonderful news!’

  ‘Yes.’ Mrs Viney pauses. ‘Elliott, Lawrence and Hugh are in a POW camp in Germany. With seven other officers.’

  ‘Seven?’ Nancy leans forward in her chair, waiting to hear that Martin is one of them.

  ‘I’m afraid Martin’s name is not on the list.’ Mrs Viney’s voice is kind, but firm.

  ‘How do you mean?’ At first, Nancy can’t make sense of the words, as though they are spoken in a foreign language. When she realizes what she has just been told, she almost screams. Instead, her voice comes out in a whimper. ‘Not on the list?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Mrs Viney speaks slowly, as though to a child. ‘His name is not on the list Elliott sent to the Red Cross.’

  Nancy’s hands have gone ice cold. Her head is spinning. ‘You mean . . . ?’

  ‘He’s not at the same camp.’ The older woman pauses, searching for the right words. ‘With the other men.’ She looks across at Nancy.

  ‘Did he say where Martin is?’ Her voice is child-like, confused.

  ‘No.’ Mrs Viney stares at the ground. ‘They must have got separated. All that confusion.’ She looks into Nancy’s eyes. ‘I’m sure the Red Cross will find him.’

  ‘Yes. But. Have you seen this report? Yourself?’ Nancy’s voice is more urgent than she intends.

  ‘They telephoned on Friday. And read it to me.’ Mrs Viney reaches out her hand to Nancy. ‘I’m sorry.’ She picks up the jug. ‘More lemonade?’

  ‘No, thank you.’ Nancy shakes her head. ‘Did they say anything about what happened at Hazebrouck that night?’ Nancy fishes in her bag and pulls out her pen and the little Oxford notebook that Martin gave her.

  ‘Goodness, I didn’t think this was going to be an interview!’ Mrs Viney chortles.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Nancy touches the brim of her hat. ‘It keeps me calm. Piecing things together.’

  ‘Perhaps you’ll write a book about it one day,’ the older woman suggests, trying not to sound condescending.

  ‘I think that will be someone else’s job.’ Nancy flips through her notebook. ‘I am just trying to find out as much as possible about what happened on the night of the twenty-seventh.’

  ‘I would leave that to the War Diary, my dear.’

  Nancy is aware that she has overstepped the mark but can’t stop herself. ‘Of course. It’s just . . . ’ A wave of fear creeps up her spine, like a cold, clammy snake, as the ramifications of what she has learned sink in. She takes off her sunglasses, rubs the tears out of her eyes. ‘I’m just so . . . ’

  Mrs Viney reaches across and pats her hand. ‘I couldn’t sleep at night. I was so sick with worry.’

  Nancy digs in her bag again, pulls out a handkerchief, dabs her eyes, forces a smile. ‘I am so glad you have had this news,’ she says.

  ‘You will, too. You must be patient. Patient. And strong.’ Mrs Viney squeezes her hand. ‘That’s how we’ll win this war.’

  Nancy takes the top off her pen. ‘Did the Red Cross say which camp they were in?’

  A white duck appears at the edge of the lawn and starts to waddle across the grass, followed by a brood of ducklings.

  ‘Aylesbury ducks.’ Mrs Viney tilts her head towards the family procession crossing the lawn.

  Nancy takes a second to get the joke but she is too upset to laugh.

  ‘Oflag VIIC,’ the older woman continues. ‘That’s the name of the camp.’ She stands up and holds out her hand. ‘Good luck with your investigations.’

  Back at Blythe Cottage, Nancy finds her mother rolling pastry for a steak and kidney pie, though there is precious little steak or kidney in it. Since January 1940, rationing for most foodstuffs has been in force. Each adult is eligible for rations and, as there are three of them at Blythe Cottage, they don’t do too badly. LJ also has a contact who occasionally gets meat and eggs from a local farm. But, along with the stringent blackout regulations and the Blitz, the little, pink ration book Nancy now carries in her bag at all times is one of the most tangible reminders that Britain is at war.

  And since last week there has been an extra mouth to feed: a boisterous eight-year-old evacuee from London with ginger hair and crooked teeth named Pat. The German air raids on Black Saturday destroyed much of the street in Stepney, where she lived with her parents. So, with a group of other children from the East End, Pat was loaded onto a coach and driven out to her new foster home at Blythe Cottage.

  The government will reimburse Nancy’s parents for the extra cost of feeding and clothing the girl, but since she arrived Peg has been having severe asthma attacks, triggered by the strain of adjusting to life with a new family member from a completely different background.

  ‘How was Mrs Viney?’ Peg lays down the rolling pin.

  Nancy takes off her hat and sunglasses, plops down in a yellow kitchen chair. ‘Reserved.’

  ‘Your father is running late.’

  ‘He’s at the office?’

  ‘You know your father.’ Peg picks up the rolling pin again, dusts a wooden board, and continues to rolls out the piecrust.

  ‘But it’s a Sunday.’

  ‘You talk to him.’ Nancy’s mother glances over at Pat, who is drawing a smiley face on the table with some flour. ‘Now, let’s see how you are at peeling hard boiled eggs.’

  Nancy shows Pat how to roll and crack an egg, and peel the shell. Unlike her mother, Nancy enjoys having the little evacuee in the house. Like her, Pat is a redhead. And, being an only child, Nancy has never known what it is like to have siblings. She feels protective towards the child, like a big sister. She brings her treats from London: a book from Foyles or a blouse from Selfridges.

  ‘What was the house like?’ Peg frowns as she arranges the ‘meat’ in the bottom of the baking dish: a thin strip of gristly stuff, the colour of a dead mouse, and some tiny, greenish-looking kidneys. It was all she could get with her ration coupon.

  ‘Even bigger than Whichert House.’ Nancy takes a little ball of leftover pastry, rolls it out with her hand and begins to make a little stick figure.
Pat joins in, giggling delightedly.

  ‘Did you see the window?’

  ‘We sat outside, Mummy. I wasn’t there for a house tour.’

  ‘Your father says they have a fifteenth-century window that was in St Mary’s Church, before Gilbert Scott restored it.’

  ‘Who’s Gilbert Scott?’ Pat asks.

  ‘You don’t know who Gilbert Scott is?’ Nancy’s mother exclaims, sounding more critical than she intends.

  ‘How’s she meant to know that, Mum?’ Nancy protests.

  ‘He’s one of our most famous architects!’ Peg shakes her head.

  The child looks confused. ‘What’s an arcky-tec?’

  ‘Someone who designs buildings.’ Nancy rolls out another piece of pastry to make the second leg for the little figure she is constructing with Pat. Pat makes an arm, then a head.

  ‘He did the Albert Memorial.’ Peg collects the egg, mixes it with the meat, adds gravy, and lays the rolled pastry over it. ‘And St Pancras.’

  Nancy pulls a face at Pat, as though to say: Of course he did! And the two of them start to giggle. The phone rings. Nancy looks at Pat, then dashes out into the hallway. ‘Hallo?’ She brushes some flour off the front of her dress. Looks at herself in the mirror. Adjusts her hair.

  ‘Is that Nancy Whelan?’

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘It’s Anne Stebbings. David’s mother?’

  Nancy’s heart beats faster. David is a close friend of Martin’s and the battalion’s intelligence officer. Will this be the news she has been praying for?

  ‘Of course.’ She tries to gather herself. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Bearing up. Yourself?’

  ‘I’ve just been to see Mrs Viney.’ Nancy picks at a hangnail.

  ‘So she told you?’

  ‘About the report?’

  ‘Yes.’